The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[Engteacher]

Please help me with this - all of our young cockerels have light grey fluff at the base of the tail. They were hatched on January 1st. Is this a fault? A flaw? Do I wait until their final adult feathers grow in to worry about it? How do I breed to correct for this if all my cocks have this same problem?

I'm hoping that their immaturity is part of the reason this puff of fluff at the point where their tail meets their back is so obvious. As their saddle feathers come in and get some length, the lighter feathers won't be obvious. When they get a bit more filled out, I'll post a picture and you can tell me what you think. Our son is hoping for a breeding trio of Welsummers to rank high enough at the county level to make it to the State Fair.

Thanks, everyone!

 

[naturespace]

I went out to check on the babies and the one in front in this picture is crowing. (he's only 2 days old) I guess he had to beat his daddy that started crowing at 4 days old.

What do you mean he is 'crowing'? Does he have a different peep for the girls? or are you just joking? Sorry if I'm missing something... it wouldn't be the first time.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Royce~ I love this males hackle, saddle and wing bow color. Nice rich vivid color. Yummy!


Just some useless info.......

Those red scales that go down the outer shank are called reticulate scales.

It is said that in the dark egg laying breeds the nice deep vermillion colored scales are an indicator that the bird will have dark egg color and/or dark egg gene.
All of my males in all of my breeds have deep red reticulates, I only keep the males that show the color and all males have daughters that lay lovely dark eggs.

Thanks Kim. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pick of him showing his breast very well. His best feature is the brown/red lacing in the breast. About 15% I'd say.

WRT the colored leg scales, I've heard that too but I have to think it may be an old wive's tale because I've got one Buckeye that has so much of it his legs are more red than yellow! I mean it's so bad they almost look pink. As is always the case though, he's got a bunch of other feature that are better than my second cock who has really nice yellow leg color.

God Bless,

 

[Tailfeathers]

To the one who asked about the fluff, I agree with Kim in that I would not cull too early. The males will need to be fairly mature before you'll be able to tell whether it should be culled for and by that time you might as well let them fill out for the table.

WRT the fluff, white or grey makes no difference. It's basically a variation in shade. There IS a difference between fluff and feather though. White feather is a definite No-No. When it comes to fluff neither is great. It is not a DQ but it is a fault. The fault comes in the way the tail is carried and the back line moves into the tail set or angle. If you take a look at the pic I posted a couple of pages back, you will see a nice, smooth transition from the back to the tail and a proper tail set. This bird has a lot of things wrong with him but that is not one of them. And he has a tad bit too much fluff as well.

WRT to the pic of the hen, that is a very nice looking bird. The stippling is extremely nice. One thing I would point out is to watch the feathres on the shoulders. I can't tell for sure but there appears to perhaps be some more red coming in on the shoulders. You don't want the red from the breast bleeding over into the shoulder feathers or into the back. Keep those nice peppered partridge feathers there.

God Bless,

 

[vanalpaca]

6 rockers, day 21 was YESTERDAY, nothing. No cheeping, no pips. I'm not going to open it yet and humidity is now down to 60%......

If you want to see the incubator I am using, go to www.customincubator.com, it is the 3 shelf with hatching drawer unit, nice glass front door, 2 viewing holes on the hatching drawer, a water/humidity door on top. The only difference is when they changed owners they went from 2 fans at the back top to 1 fan, mine has 2.

Heated by 2 100 watt red bulbs at the top front. I'm going to go see if my thermometers/hygrometers can be calibrated/checked.

I'm suspicious that they are either very wrong or the heat isn't getting down to the bottom of the unit. It does have a thermometer set at the very bottom and it always reads 101 and it is a really long/large one and Accurite brand which I found to be usually reliable.

I'm flumoxed folks!! And very discouraged. I'm going to let the humidity run as it. Today it is 60%, I have 12-18 eggs that are supposed to be locked down Wednesday, so I will check everything again then.

I wish I knew more about incubating. This really sucks........

 

[naturespace]

6 rockers, day 21 was YESTERDAY, nothing. No cheeping, no pips. I'm not going to open it yet and humidity is now down to 60%......

If you want to see the incubator I am using, go to www.customincubator.com, it is the 3 shelf with hatching drawer unit, nice glass front door, 2 viewing holes on the hatching drawer, a water/humidity door on top. The only difference is when they changed owners they went from 2 fans at the back top to 1 fan, mine has 2.

Heated by 2 100 watt red bulbs at the top front. I'm going to go see if my thermometers/hygrometers can be calibrated/checked.

I'm suspicious that they are either very wrong or the heat isn't getting down to the bottom of the unit. It does have a thermometer set at the very bottom and it always reads 101 and it is a really long/large one and Accurite brand which I found to be usually reliable.

I'm flumoxed folks!! And very discouraged. I'm going to let the humidity run as it. Today it is 60%, I have 12-18 eggs that are supposed to be locked down Wednesday, so I will check everything again then.

I wish I knew more about incubating. This really sucks........

The first time I incubated I didn't get any chicks until day 22 and then I only got 2 out of 16. I thought I had my temp correct during incubation. I had 5 thermometers and used the 2 that read the same temp. Well those were off and I incubated at a lower temp the whole time! I since got 2 Brinsea spot check thermometers and the are MUCH more accurate. Meanwhile, hold tight. The humidity isn't too low so I think you will be ok, but don't let it drop much lower. Good luck and keep us posted. Hope you get at least 2 babies and don't get turned off to incubating. Oh, are you hatching shipped eggs? If so, they can have more late quitters. Shipping is hard on them and usually 50% is an excellent hatch. Hang in there.

 

[Hens and Roos]

6 rockers, day 21 was YESTERDAY, nothing. No cheeping, no pips. I'm not going to open it yet and humidity is now down to 60%......

If you want to see the incubator I am using, go to www.customincubator.com, it is the 3 shelf with hatching drawer unit, nice glass front door, 2 viewing holes on the hatching drawer, a water/humidity door on top. The only difference is when they changed owners they went from 2 fans at the back top to 1 fan, mine has 2.

Heated by 2 100 watt red bulbs at the top front. I'm going to go see if my thermometers/hygrometers can be calibrated/checked.

I'm suspicious that they are either very wrong or the heat isn't getting down to the bottom of the unit. It does have a thermometer set at the very bottom and it always reads 101 and it is a really long/large one and Accurite brand which I found to be usually reliable.

I'm flumoxed folks!! And very discouraged. I'm going to let the humidity run as it. Today it is 60%, I have 12-18 eggs that are supposed to be locked down Wednesday, so I will check everything again then.

I wish I knew more about incubating. This really sucks........

When we run our homemade incubators for days 1-18 we run humdity no higher than 35% and than when we remove the turner and put the eggs on the shelf for hatching we bump the humdity up to 50-55 % and try to keep it under 60% We try and keep the heat at 99-100 *. The hatch we have due Tuesday we have had a little bigger swing in the temp so we will see what happens. I think alot of it depends on the weather where you live and the time of the year.

Good luck and hope you get some to hatch.

 

[faykokoWV]

6 rockers, day 21 was YESTERDAY, nothing. No cheeping, no pips. I'm not going to open it yet and humidity is now down to 60%......

If you want to see the incubator I am using, go to www.customincubator.com, it is the 3 shelf with hatching drawer unit, nice glass front door, 2 viewing holes on the hatching drawer, a water/humidity door on top. The only difference is when they changed owners they went from 2 fans at the back top to 1 fan, mine has 2.

Heated by 2 100 watt red bulbs at the top front. I'm going to go see if my thermometers/hygrometers can be calibrated/checked.

I'm suspicious that they are either very wrong or the heat isn't getting down to the bottom of the unit. It does have a thermometer set at the very bottom and it always reads 101 and it is a really long/large one and Accurite brand which I found to be usually reliable.

I'm flumoxed folks!! And very discouraged. I'm going to let the humidity run as it. Today it is 60%, I have 12-18 eggs that are supposed to be locked down Wednesday, so I will check everything again then.

I wish I knew more about incubating. This really sucks........

so sorry to hear about your incubating problems. It can be sooo frustrating trying to figure out sometimes.

are the developing fully or quiting early? I'd crack a few (outside) that didn't make it and see if they are really wet or dry. That can give you a clue if its a humidity issue. If they are pipping and then dying, that can be humidity too. The one thing that jumped out at me is the thermometer reading 101 at the bottom, that's higher than it should be and heat rises, they may be getting too hot at the top.

Thats a awesome looking incubator, and so well priced.... hmmm.. how long till my birthday, may have to talk with DH

 

[vanalpaca]

No cheeps, no pips. I see temp dropped 2 degrees Fri night and Sat while I was gone. Humidity was at 65 and they were good at day 18.

I am suspicious that it is just from switching locations in the bator. Just my gut feeling.

The bottom bulb reads the same as the bulb on the 2nd shelf. They were at 101 for incubation, but over the weekend I discovered that they were at 99, so a 2 degree drop may have chilled them.

The min/max digital is mounted on the door plexiglass, so falsely reads cooler and usually 2 degrees lower that those back two. But it was reading 98 and min was 97 this morning.

The Accurite brand is mounted on hard plastic so that doesn't shrink like the ones on plastic film that come with the turners and that was a good thermometer and temp for hatching trial last year.

These were my eggs, on turners this spring up to 10 days old, held at temps of 60 degrees or less until incubating and humidity was 55-60 % in the room.

They hygrometer reads the same as the one we have out in the room that we have had for years, so it is consistent, don't know if it is real or not.

The door of the bator was half fogged and top half clear when humidity was upped to 65%.........

I feel better today because a baby alpaca was born at my farm today and that did a world of good. And it was a brown girl with darker brown legs/muzzle, her name is 'Lady Gwen'......

 

[faykokoWV]

http://www.shilala.com/incubating.html

The info I was refering to on temperature is in this article

Quote:

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]This is plain and simple, yet the MOST important part of hatching.[/FONT]​

[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Still-air incubator (no fan):101.5 degrees measured at the TOP of the eggs.
Fan Forced incubator: 99.5 degrees measured anywhere in the incubator.
Humidity: 60-65% for the first 18 days, 80-85% for the last 3 days.
You can sneak by with humidity numbers that aren't very accurate, but the combination of poor humidity and temperature will definately cause problems at hatch time. If your temperature is not accurate you will DEFINATELY have problems at hatch time. The bigger the deviation from the proper temperature, the bigger your problems will be![/FONT]​

I used this info when I first started hatching. I personally have less problems with eggs if the temps are on the low side of the range. I actually just had an incubator get unplugged for 2 days at day 17 and still had 6 out of 25 hatch after I plugged it back in. I think its just like a chick that gets too cold, you can sometimes see them come back when they warm up. Once their cooked their done though. I hope you get it worked out. One of the most frustrating things in the world of chickens that loosing chickies

Congrats on the new baby alpaca! That must be fantastic!!!